one half of the room are vampires

dragged a line through chalk, 

I sighed to say I'd made you talk,

I'd dragged you here by the neck,

away from love and loss and loving.

ankles tied tight swept out from under you,

away with the tide that will never come back,

away with the youth that burns behind you,

a comet tail on a commercial flight, 

spindly perfect cloud, trailing white, trailing white,

as the gold dust becomes... just sediment, 

sticks to the side of glass at the side of the sink.

you were brought here for a reason,

for recompense, for treason,

to sound out everything you believe in,

in simple symbols,

sighing cold in creaks,

like the window lets air in,

one sad sap at a time. 

I need to hear your epiphany,

I need it billowing through my neck,

but I'm stuck with your silence,

in a building without phones,

I need you to bring energy,

but you came empty fisted and alone,

I was waiting weighted like a freight cart,

without wheels, with broken bones,

a pack mule cut to pieces, 

a standard bearer waving madly, sweetly stoned, 

unaware of the subtext, the relevance, 

the debts 

happy hanging like a scapegoat,

crying idol all alone. 

talking like a stranger,

you punched another ticket, 

your stiff upper lip a blistered beak,

you were smiling like you

 were holding something back

a throat loaded with vomit, 

or the ability to speak. 

tough

...you curl up your lip,
 don't you know how to apologise?
you look absurd,
 like your soul's being extracted by syringe,
I hope there is something left to burn inside you.

...you turn away,
because you don't know what to say,
I wish you'd cry,
I wish I thought you had it in you,
how I'd fall, like a planned demolition blasting grey.

The night is a shivering wreck curled up by your door,
eyes bleached blind by the light of a sun,
so distant from ours, so completely far,
she is a shadow of the lamb thing,
that once tripped around my room,
with shadows clipping merrily,
that carousel is doomed.

a hold

the night signs off with smoke and leather
sweating between the grains,
like the chalk residue of metal,
the powder still in your nose,
the ceiling and the walls fail together,
the carpet and the curtains melt with their stains.

We are empty alone but together,
there are funeral pyres in our brains,
little mausoleums burning eternal flames,
there are kisses wrapped in tin foil,
saccharine sweet prevails.

as the gun lit tip of the last wretched evening,
the last free unadulterated link in the chain,
peels off like ash before the window,
a pile of shit or guts or brains,
we are lying on the floor before ourselves
and I for one have gone insane.

the atlantic

There is an ocean pushing my hand away from you,
forming red spheres in the blue, popping as they come to,
and I'm left sifting the sea, left looking for you,
through hands wet and webbed with water,
as the clear sea is clouded with sand,
the blue is so deep that it is now black.

Were we not born in the same dream,
the same set of stubbed in tacks.
the same half delusion of grandeur,
the same poorly pasted up cracks.
were we not pushed out together,
to float, to drown, to swim back.

When I think of you in symbols,
you've already given all of those parts,
there are no new cells to nurture,
all divided before I featured,
and the lights blink into the future,
where all the sentences are blurry,
and all the outcomes mixed and slurring,
where my head is blocked and slurring,
and my mouth is full and slurring,
and I wish my cell was broken,
into two then four then open,
spread into bits out open,
like a pen leaked out then frozen,
ink iced up half chosen;
thoughts blurted out in the open,
and when I've torn myself right open,
like a pen cracked into the open,
and you've told me all of your symbols,
and none of them cradle me in their middle,
like I held you round the middle,
like I love you right through the middle,
but I can't see any other any longer,
 all our lights blink off into the future,
Even when you push me off like a suture,
And I'm sorry I know that i'm slurring,
but i'm scared just so scared that we're blurring,
and i'm scared of what you are inferring,
And I wish my cell wasn't broken,
this is no kind of life in the open,
this is not the love I was hoping,
I'm not sure my dear if we're coping.